Interview with

Mrs. Lois West

by West Forum Director, Dr. Blease Graham

August 12, 2003
Hilton Head, South Carolina

Topics
Lois West's Family Background
Getting Involved in Public Life
Early Camden and "Winter Golf"
First Meeting John West
Winthrop College
John West Decides to Run for the South Carolina Senate
Family Life in Politics
John West's First Senate Campaign
Applying for a Credit Card
Moving to Saudi Arabia
Visit to Embassy by Champion Boxer Mohammed Ali
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Lois West Family Background

Graham: August 12. This is an interview with Mrs. Lois West, reminiscing about her political life and her views about political non-partisanship, civic involvement. It might be of interest just to start to tell us a little about your background, like were you born in Camden, who your parents were, and kind of…

West: My father was Boykin Rhame and my mother was Annie Lois Larry. And I was the fifth child.

Graham: Were they longtime Camden residents, or?

West: My mother was born in Monroe, and my father was born in down in Spring Hill, which is below Camden.

Graham: Below Camden, yes.

West: And then as young people in Camden they used to take a buggy ride. I’ve got some of their letters and things.

Graham: Did your father have a public life? Was he involved in…?

West: He sold wagons and mules in a livery stable. They had Rhame Brother’s Grocery Store, and he worked for [unintel.]. He was a volunteer fireman, I’ve got some pictures of him. They had a fire brigade and all the young men in town worked on it. And that’s where the rivalry between Sumter and Camden started. They used to have races to see who could get to the hydrant and turn the water on first. They always said that in Sumter, the people turned the spigots on in their back yards so they couldn’t get water. [click to return to topics]

Getting Involved in Public Life

Graham: Do you think you got ideas of being involved as a citizen yourself from the model of your parents? Or did that come more through school? Someone else you may have had in mind?

West: I never had any idea of getting into… John and I didn’t really didn’t intend to get in politics. He had decided he wouldn’t.

Graham: How did it all happen?

West: Well, our oldest little boy had a strep throat. And he had a convulsion. It scared the living daylights out of us because we were young parents.

Graham: This would be Jack?

West: Yes. And we rushed him up to the hospital and there wasn’t any room in the hospital. They only had one private room and a ward. And they had a measles or mumps epidemic or something. So, it was all full.

And then John complained to his uncle, who was a doctor, that it was a disgrace that we had to have Jack on a cot out in the hall. And every time they came and shot the other kids -- every time we’d get him to sleep -- they would all squall and he’d wake up again. And so we took him home the next day. It turned out he had strep throat.

And so Uncle Carl told him, he said, “Well, now John, we can’t get anybody to serve as chairman of the hospital board.” So, John said, “I got the message.” So, he became chairman of the Hospital Board.

The Hospital Board had to decide whether they needed a new hospital or they were going to renovate the old one. And they decided not to renovate, but to build an entirely new one, which was a great issue in the local town, because the old crowd – the people who were born and raised there over the years – they thought it was a sacrilege not to redo the old hospital.

So, the only way they could build a hospital was to float a bond issue. The county was limited. You could only have so much indebtedness. And so they had to pass a bill in the Senate to allow them to raise the bonded indebtedness. So, John ran for the Senate to pass the bill to raise the bonded indebtedness to built the hospital. So, it’s Jack’s fault. It’s all his fault.

Graham: I guess the Depression was still on a lot of people’s minds at that point too, about borrowing money, or?

West: I think it was more the idea that Bernard Baruch had given this hospital in honor of his parents. It was a civic and social contest, really.

Graham: I see. Was there anything left of the Baruch family by this time, or?

West: I grew up with Debbie Baruch, who was the niece of Bernard Baruch. There were two girls who grew up in town. I think that was his only brother, maybe. I’m not sure.

Graham: He left as a real young fellow, didn’t he? Bernard himself.

West: Yes. But, he was always good to those girls, I remember that. She lives down in Georgetown now. [click to return to topics]

Early Camden and Winter Golf

Graham: Was there much of a difference between Camden as a town and the surrounding area, that was like town and country, or? The town was fairly small during this time, wasn’t it?

West: Yes, I think probably…maybe 5000 people all told, the outskirts and everything, maybe. Camden was always a very social town. And then we had the Yankees who came down in the winter. And you had the local people and the Yankees. Their children came. That’s where David Williams and Arthur Daniel … I went to school with all of them. They had come down to go to school as kids, and we were friends growing up. But there was a difference, because they had a lot of money, and most of the Camden people .... What's that old saying about "too poor to paint and proud to whitewash"? Well, it was definitely a social town.

West: When John was a young man, the Chamber of Commerce used to have a committee. Did he tell you this?

Graham: No.

West: They’d go out to the golf course where the railroad track goes through, and every day at noon when the train from up north was going to Florida – the train was coming through – the young men from the Chamber of Commerce would go out in their short sleeves and play golf in the dead of winter. This was to let people know it was warm enough they could stop there and not go to Florida.

There’s one hole that’s right by where the railroad goes through. Well, that’s what really happened. But when he was a young fellow, first practicing law in Camden, they had a committee to go up there, play golf in their short sleeves at the time the train went through.

Graham: I guess it is possible to play year –round over there. I mean it ought to get fairly cold in some of the winter months, but…

West: I always play year-round. It rarely ever snows. [click to return to topics]

First Meeting

Graham: When did you first meet John West?

West: In the first grade.

Graham: In the first grade. You all truly have been life-long.

West: Well, in those days, your mothers made you enter these speaking contests. And he represented the Charlotte Thompson School, which was a little country school out where we live now. And I represented the Camden one. And he had a…”I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,” and I did Little Orphan Annie. And I won, and he cried. And his mother gave him a five dollar gold piece and a box of candy because she said I really didn’t win, I was a little girl and I had smocking on my dress. And he vowed to get even with me, and marry me, and did.

Graham: That’s a great story. (Laughing)

West: That’s true. (Laughing) That’s where we first met. We’d double-date in high school.

Graham: So you kept in touch all through school.

West: In Camden you knew everybody. And actually, he was a year ahead of me. I missed a year of school. I was sick one year. And he skipped a year because he was so bad. And he didn’t have enough to do and he was bothering his mother, so she took him down to the teacher and said, “Put him up a grade.”

Graham: Give him a challenge, right?

West: Yes, so he’d have some homework. So, he actually graduated from college at 19.

Graham: Is that right? Did you visit him at the Citadel, or could women visit men at the Citadel?

West: Went to the dances.

Graham: To the dances.

West: Don’t you know about Fritz’s famous remark when they were trying to put girls at the Citadel? He said, “When I was there I spent all my time trying to get ‘em in the barracks, and now they’re trying to keep ‘em out.”

Graham: I guess you do hear those tales about the cadets trying to get their girlfriends in and out.

West: No, it was strictly off limits to the girls. [click to return to topics]

Lois West at Winthrop

Graham: How did you wind up as a student at Winthrop. Was it a university that people in Camden went to? Did you have…?

West: No, my sister went to Columbia College, and she did everything there, and she was everything. And I didn’t want to follow in her footsteps. I wanted to do my own thing. I was always an independent cuss. So, I went to Winthrop. And besides that, it was cheap. I could afford it.

Graham: Did you prepare for a particular career, like public school teacher, or…?

West: I majored in Physical Education.

Graham: Physical Education.

West: And I did teach some.

Graham: Do you remember some of your professors, or some of your time at Winthrop, or some unique things about Winthrop?

West: I loved Winthrop. It was a wonderful school for me. [click to return to topics]

John West's Decision to Run for the Senate

Graham: Is it true that when Governor West first decided to run for the Senate that you were opposed to it?

West: Bitterly.

Graham: Why?

West: I knew what it would do, and I knew how it would end up. I didn’t want to go.

Graham: Did you think, were you afraid he’d lose, or you just didn’t like…?

West: No. I thought he’d go all the way. But what happened is they wanted someone to run to get the bond bill passed. And his friends came and asked him to do it. And I said, Well, if you get a certain number of people, and I named the ones I wanted, to endorse you, and who, before you decide to run, will ask you to run, then you'll have the support and it would be fine. Because the town was bitterly divided over that hospital. And they said, “Oh Yes,” they’d do that. And then one of his friends announced he was running, before they got any of that.

And John said he wouldn’t run if I didn’t want him to. And I said, “I’m not going to put you in the position of saying you can’t run because your wife won’t let you. I mean, that’s silly. So, you’re going to run.”

But I didn’t like it, no. I cried, and I don’t cry much. But I wept bitter tears over that thing. But you can either go gracefully or go kicking and screaming, and I had to make that choice. So, I tried to go gracefully. [click to return to topics]

Family Life in Politics

Graham: Did you find it easier to have a public life when he was Governor than it was when he was Senator or did it become more…?

West: It’s all the same. I tried to explain to our children that, “You have advantages and opportunities that you wouldn’t have if you father was not Governor or Senator, or whatever he is. But there are also disadvantages. And you’ll be marked children. You’ll get certain privileges but you’ll also get a lot of stuff thrown at you that you maybe don’t deserve all the time. And you have to behave.

Graham: A little like preachers’ kids.

West: Yes, it was. One of Jack’s friends was giving our teacher a hard time in school. And one of the teachers in the school happened to be one of our next door neighbors out in the country. And this teacher remarked how bad a child the Senator’s son was. And she said, “No he’s not. I ride that boy to school every day.” And she says, “Oh, he’s terrible and he threatened he’d get my job if I didn’t do something.” Then she said, “Well, show him to me.” It was one of Jack’s friends, who said, “I’m the Senator’s son.”

Graham: Using Jack as a cover, wasn’t he?

West: Yes. That’s the way it is. And one of my favorite things that happened was there was a man, Mr. Horton, who owned the little hamburger place by the mill. I used to take the cub scouts in there for a hamburgers after we had a scout meeting. We had been going there for ten years, I guess.

And when John was running for Senator, I guess, one of the people came in there during lunchtime, spreading rumors what a bad child that this fellow had, that they shouldn’t vote for him because his children were terrible. They drank and did all this stuff, you know. Well, Mr. Horton jumped the counter. He went after them. He said, “I’ve been feeding that boy for six years. Don’t you say anything about him, he isn’t bad. He’s a good boy.”

Well, that’s the sort of thing you have. That’s just the way it is sometimes, with politics. And you don’t enjoy that. And wives, as you know today, are most sensitive about their husbands than they are about themselves. So, it’s hard. [click to return to topics]

JohnWest’s First Campaign

Graham: How about that first campaign. Was it difficult for him to get established, or did you…?

West: He said it was the hardest thing he ever did, to ask the first fellow to vote for him. He said he didn’t know how to do it. Well, it is hard to go out and ask someone to support you. But the best answer to that is a fellow named Dynamite Nelson. I asked him one day – he was working so hard for John – I said, “Dynamite, why are you supporting my husband?” He said, “Miss. West, it’s like this. I don’t have any education and I’m not real smart. But I figure if I elect a smart man, and he’s honest, he go there and do what’s best for me.”

Graham: That’s very eloquent, isn’t it?

West: Dynamite worked at the mill.

Graham: Did you find in working in the campaign that there was some fellows that weren’t quite so smart?

West: Do you mean were some of them ugly?

Graham: Yes, were some of them ugly?

West: I used to hand out John’s card, and they stomp on it, spit on it, and tear it up in front of me. It was fun.

Graham: Why do you think people do that?

West: It’s just in the heat of politics. They like their candidate and they don’t like the other one. But you see it. It has been that way from the time it started. George Washington had a little trouble too, you know.

Graham: That’s true, not everybody liked him.

West: Jackson had a little problem. You can go right through history and see it. It continues, you know.

Graham: Do you think that public life has changed for the families of candidates and office holders today as compared to twenty years ago, ten years ago, 1970’s?

West: Well, again you go back and look at the campaign against Jackson, or things like that. And there were pretty nasty things that were circulating then. But when Watergate came along, I think that started it. And they tend to not let the family have any privacy, I don’t think. I mean, I you’re going to be running for public office, you’d better watch what you do from kindergarten. It’s that bad, really. And it’s difficult to be in a fishbowl. Fortunately, John and I don’t have many skeletons for somebody to rattle, and that helped.

Graham: And also he doesn’t have a typical politician’s personality.

West: Well, like when Shelton was at Carolina, she was taking a class and it was in government. And one of her classmates kept talking about that fat little fellow that was governor. He just gave him a hard time. And Shelton, she just listened to it, you know. And then one day she walked in and he said, “You’re not.” And she said, “I am.”

And she had trouble when, I think it was President Nixon came to visit. She wanted to be excused by one of her professors at the University. She said she wanted to be excused because she wanted to go and hear the President speak at the State House. He said, “You can’t go. You can’t get in.” She said, “Yes, I think I can.” Well, he just wouldn’t let her go because she couldn’t get excused. She couldn’t get in, but she could have gotten in. She didn’t want to tell him who she was.

Graham: Do you think that the children resented sometimes the public life, being put into that position?

West: Shelton had a hard time with it because of me, when he was Governor. Because she was at the age where it bothered her. She was still in high school. And if I went downtown shopping, people would stop and speak to me. And she’s say, “But you’re my mother.” And she didn’t want to share me. [click to return to topics]

Problems While Applying for a Credit Card

So, I solved the problem by going to Atlanta, Georgia to shop. I didn’t have any problem until I went into Saks and I decided, well, he’s was getting out of office and I’d just get a Saks credit card. And so, they gave me an application, I started filling it out, and it said, “Do you own or rent your present home?” Well, the Governor’s Mansion, I didn’t do either. It said, “Is your husband permanently employed?” No.

There’s just no way you can answer an application if your husband’s governor. And so, I started laughing. And the lady came and said, “Are you having trouble with that?” I said, “Yes I am. I have to confess that I can’t answer it. I do own a home but I don’t live in it. My husband happens to be governor of South Carolina right now.”

She said, “I’m so glad you told me because you came in, you paid for purchase with a check on the Bank of Bethune, South Carolina. You gave us a driver’s license that said that your residence is RFD 1 Camden, and you gave your address as 800 Richland Street, Columbia.

I said, “Well, lady, don’t you know only an honest person would do that?” By that time somebody in the next dressing room said, “Lois, is that you?” It was one of my friends in Atlanta. But you have all sorts of funny little things happen to you in politics.

Graham: How was the change from the family life –I guess that’s the way to put it, sort of short-hand – between the Governor’s Mansion and then the Ambassador’s Residence.? Were the children with you?

West: When we went to the Governor’s Mansion, Jack was starting law school and Doug was going to the Citadel. I had to let my brother take him down there because he wouldn’t let us take him. And Boykin took him and dropped him off at the campus, at the gate. And the first year, he didn’t claim us. And we didn’t know that until after he went back and one of the boys gave him a hard time. He said, “Boy, I asked you if you were kin of that fellow that was running for Governor and you told me, “distantly.” Here I saw you on television and you’re his son.” And Doug said, “Sir, it’s a long distance, sir, from Columbia to Charleston, sir.” That’s how he got out of it.

When Jack went, John was running for Lieutenant Governor, and right in front of the Citadel was a big billboard with John’s picture on it. And he was John C. Jr. So, he just got his little fanny whipped up one side and down the other. Well, it didn’t bother… He handled it beautifully, evidently, because he ended up getting elected president of his senior class in spite of his father.

Graham: That’s quite an accomplishment.

West: Not because of it. [click to return to topics]

Moving to Saudi Arabia

Graham: Then they were grown before you went to Saudi Arabia.

West: Yes, Shelton was in high school when we moved in the Governor’s Mansion, and we let her continue and finish in Camden. She lived with my sister while we campaigned because she lived next door. (Unintelligible) took care of her because I couldn’t just leave her. And then when we moved to Columbia, she moved in with us and we had her carried back and forth every day. We just drove her back and forth to finish because she wanted to finish with her own friends in her own class. Then she went to the University as a freshman. Actually, she went to Winthrop for a year and then transferred.

West: She was the one that studied. In fact, she had trouble at the University. Don Fowler taught a class in political science, and she made a B on it. And it was the only B she made that semester. Everybody else gave her an A. Don gave her a B because he didn’t want anybody to think he was playing favorites because he was Chairman of the Democratic Party. So, when he got to Saudi Arabia – when he came to visit us – he said, “Don’t tell him about the sharks.”

Graham: Another demand made of the Governor’s child.

West: Saudi Arabia is a lot like the South to me. You come in and you speak to everybody, and you go around, tell everybody you had a nice time, and you leave. I didn’t have any trouble because I’d grown up doing that all my life. People from other parts of the country find it strange. Now they do wash your hand and perfume when you leave, Chanel No. 5. They pour that over you and let you wash your hands in it, which is a different custom from what we have.

But I didn’t have any trouble there. It’s very much like a big southern ... So and so’s brother’s uncle married Aunt Suzie’s first cousin’s nephew. In fact, one day I asked one of the princesses to explain her family thing and she couldn’t do it. It was too convoluted and involved. But I enjoyed Saudi Arabia. The people were very warm and friendly.

Graham: You must have had…there must be pressure to represent the United States, and that’s critical to the embassy. [click to return to topics]

Visit By Champion Boxer, Mohammed Ali

West: Yes. It was a…. We entertained. Actually, I probably entertained three times a day. But that was the way John handled it. And he would call up… The funniest one we had was when Mohammed Ali came to town.

Graham: The boxer?

West: Yes. And, you see, he’s Muslim, so all Muslims wanted to come. Well, Sheik (unintel.), as I remember, wanted to come, that’s the way it started. John said Sheik (unintel.) wanted to come and have lunch there with him. And he’d call up thirty minutes later and he said, “Well, now, so-and-so wants to come.” I’d expand a little more and he’d call thirty minutes later.

I said, “John, I can feed 140 people seated. And after that they can have paper plates and sit on the grass. Bring anybody you want.” So, everybody came. The school bus came up and the school children got out. It was fun. He shook hands with everybody and boxed with all the people, and they just loved him. And he was very gracious. Well, he was very gracious that day. The kids just loved it and the house boys had their pictures taken, all hitting him. They thought it was just marvelous. [click to return to topics]